


And this body, transformed

by alunsina



Category: VIXX
Genre: Bodyswap, Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9037214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunsina/pseuds/alunsina
Summary: Wherein kpop success means waking up in another member's body.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Psithurisma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psithurisma/gifts).



 

 

It was said to occur at least once in a team that has reached some measure of success in the industry. A sort of urban myth for singers. Sanghyuk had never heard of such a thing, never encountered it quite as close and personal before but apparently it went like this: you hit a certain number of wins in a music show, win a digital bonsang or two, or go over a certain threshold for album sales, then poof.

“Did you even ask them how to switch us back?!” Sanghyuk, or rather Hakyeon using Sanghyuk’s arm, threw a shoe across the practice room floor in indignation. It was surreal watching your own body be inhabited by an altogether different set of habits and motions. Sanghyuk usually saw himself as all sharp, restless, shapeless energy. So unlike the way Hakyeon moved in it now, all muted and controlled.

Sanghyuk was too bone-deep tired to do anything else than list against the walls and watch Hakyeon grow into another level of agitated.

“It was all I got from Jongin!” Wonshik put up both arms in self-defense, just in case Hakyeon-in-Sanghyuk’s-body decided to do away with his other shoe and aim for his face. “Anyway, I think they all managed to switch back? Maybe it’ll just wear off?” he added, looking hopeful.

Hakyeon crossed his arms over his chest and even that managed to look off-kilter and not right. “Like hair color, you mean? For how long? A week? A month? We’ll just shower and hope it fades away?”

“Uh,” Wonshik wisely not-answered and turned to Hongbin and Jaehwan doing some serious Naver work in his laptop. “Did you find anything?”

They hadn’t found anything despite Jaehwan’s insistence that it must be The Show’s fault for giving them all those trophies while Hongbin rolled his eyes.

“But what if they didn’t switch back?” Hongbin said and Wonshik raised an eyebrow. “And you weren’t talking to Jongin-ssi at all but with Krystal sunbae?”

“Naah, it can’t be. Wait, really?”

“Guys, can we first focus on getting a cure here? How can we do our schedules when the two of us are like this?!” Hakyeon had his back turned on the practice room mirrors the entire time, hadn’t looked once in Sanghyuk’s direction, settling down on the practice room floor, knees drawn up and looking far more graceful than Sanghyuk had ever managed with the same long limbs.

“I’ll ask Gongchan if he’s heard of something. But. This is too weird. Your voice, hyung,” Hongbin admitted.

Jaehwan nodded. “Super weird. Like you use Hyukkie’s voice and you have Hyukkie’s face, but it’s like a bad actor doing a really bad impression of him.”

“I know,” Hakyeon wailed into his hands.

It was bad, surely, being stuck in each other’s body. And yet Sanghyuk didn’t feel it reach wailing levels yet, or was that mostly because he didn’t have the energy to feel anything about it? “It’s just like being a maknae again. It’s yaja time, hyung, like a game,” Sanghyuk said but Hakyeon didn’t lift up his head even once to acknowledge the joke.

At the far corner of their practice room, Taekwoon looked up at all of them, pulled off his earphones and asked, “Hey, why is Sanghyuk moping and acting strange?”

 

***

There were problems. Having to hide out from everybody else who wasn’t the CEO or top management or their manager hyung or VIXX. Sanghyuk’s irrepressible urge to order around or speak informally with Taekwoon and the other hyungs, because it was fun, because even if they knew about the switch they would still forget he wasn’t really Hakyeon. The moral dilemma of keeping up proper hygiene in someone else’s body (“I like to keep clean,” said Hakyeon, when they finally could meet each other eye to eye, and Sanghyuk remembered Hakyeon’s self-consciousness about showing his own body during their Hyde photoshoot and responded that he did bathe briskly and efficiently). The logistics of getting used to new limbs and his new reach and his height (or the lack thereof).

Then there were scheduling problems.

“—I have nothing,” clarified Sanghyuk after manager hyung laid out all their schedules in an emergency closed-door meeting, Hakyeon sitting on the other end of the table with his sheaves of paper and his notebook. Well, Sanghyuk had composition lessons and practice, and going home and taking out his sisters for some sightseeing. But those were his sisters, it would be fine if he skipped out. School was done for the year too.

Hakyeon’s schedules were a whole another dimension of busy to contend with and his sheaves of paper turned out to be Hakyeon’s copy of the musical he was in, the musicals he was trying get in, a dog-eared script for webdrama scenes to be reshot and refilmed, and other fun stuff.

“It’s a little unwieldy,” Hakyeon said, looking at least slightly apologetic as Sanghyuk flipped through the scripts and seriously, understatement of the century. “But I’ll help out as much as I can until we find a way to switch back.”

Okay, Sanghyuk could probably get behind that wailing.

 

***

To make matters worse VIXX choreo run-throughs for the gayos, aka most weeknights and early mornings as they approach the end of the year, were going so badly they mess up the blocking and positions and other members’ positions. Not that they didn't know each other's parts well but doing them perfectly without thought was another thing.

"And Hakyeon-ah," their choreographer hyung was saying to Sanghyuk, scratching the back of his head presumably in frustration, "look after them better. I can't believe you let these mistakes go this far, you should've caught it amongst yourselves."

At the corner of Sanghyuk's vision he could spot Hakyeon straighten up and come to his defense. "Won't you give him a break? He's been trying his best on top of his other commitments."

Their choreographer sighed.

"Yes hyung, I'll try harder." Sanghyuk dipped his head in apology.

"Sorry about that," Hakyeon nudged at him near the water cooler later during their short break. "I kept getting distracted by my reflection and forgetting the steps."

That too. Sanghyuk catching himself in the practice room mirror and dealing with the cognitive dissonance of seeing Hakyeon's face instead of his own, but more than that noticing the little details he never paid attention about hyung before: the lining of perpetual tiredness around his eyes; the cords of strength in his arms; and whenever Sanghyuk closed his fists, he was struck by the roughness of Hakyeon’s palms, the calluses inside his fingers.

Sanghyuk swung an arm around Hakyeon’s neck, Hakyeon-style, dragging him close. “Aigoo, our Hyogi is so cute. Are you trying to comfort hyung?” he crowed and ruffled Hakyeon’s hair too for authenticity. His heart swelled three sizes at seeing the flash of irritation pass Hakyeon’s face.

“Do I talk like that? I don’t talk like that.”

“Better be careful. Hyung is looking over here,” Sanghyuk reminded him and got himself punched in the side. “Ow.”

“Just keeping it in character.” Hakyeon smiled.

 

***

But the greatest heartbreak of all:

“Gopchang, you betrayed me.” Sanghyuk wrinkled his nose at the grilling meat, it smelled weird, it tasted off and weird, he’d never known such stark rejection in his young life. Hakyeon took pity on him and served up more ramyeon to help him fill up.

“Mmm,” Taekwoon mumbled and got more meat for his plate.

“More for us,” Jaehwan said, going for thirds.

 

***

Alone in his personal practice room, going over Benny’s lines as Hakyeon continued to mark up the scripts for Sanghyuk’s benefit, Hakyeon leaned back on his chair, sighed and said, “Having the energy for once is nice, but I keep feeling sorry you had to do all of this.”

“You work a lot.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m realizing now. I could scale it back a bit.” Hakyeon laughed then sobered up like something just hit him. “We can’t go on like this for much longer. If we can’t figure out something soon.”

It was hard to think about, the possibility of not getting back to their bodies, living out as each other for the rest of their lives, and even being alienated from their families and friends. Not seeing hyung dance the same way again.

“I can still handle a few more days. I’ve been working really hard on my hyung impressions,” Sanghyuk said.

“Really now.”

For full effect Sanghyuk stood up and enacted the Hakyeon classics: fighting with the hairstylist noona, trying to wheedle a free massage from Sanghyuk, clinging to Wonshik, Hakyeon’s stank face.

“Yah!” Hakyeon went over to his side of the room and landed a hard chop to his neck.

“Your face! It’s pretty amazing,” Sanghyuk guffawed. Hakyeon’s pretty amazing. And when he looked back at Hakyeon, realized how much taller than him hyung was again, like how he’d been when Sanghyuk joined VIXX, Hakyeon the big brother who tried to make him comfortable, the hyung who gave him advice and helped him out at the start when he was having a rough time during debut. Sanghyuk, younger and new and grateful, and his initial urges to press Hakyeon against the wall, tilt his chin up and maybe-

Sanghyuk leaned in and pressed a kiss at the corner of Hakyeon’s mouth. He could hear Hakyeon’s sharp inhale.

Then: “Did you just kiss yourself?” Hakyeon asked, voice steady, yet he was turning bright red, the heat spreading across his cheekbones and up to the tips of his ears. Sanghyuk didn’t know he could—his own face could—blush that deeply.

“Yes? Well, you did too,” Sanghyuk said.

“This is really weird,” Hakyeon said but when Sanghyuk leaned in again Hakyeon’s hand came up at the small of Sanghyuk’s back, to steady him, to draw him closer to the warmth of Hakyeon’s-but-actually-Sanghyuk’s—you know what, it didn’t matter. They kissed for quite some time.

 

***

“So you’re saying,” Wonshik stared at them both standing in the middle of their practice room floor, right as rain again, “it wore off?”

“Yep! It wore off.” Hakyeon turned to the rest of them and clapped his hands once to get their attention. It was a quiet relief to see the gesture again—Hakyeon’s mannerisms in Hakyeon’s own body. “I know we’ve been having trouble with the gayo practices but I think it’ll be easier going now that that terrible episode is behind us.”

“Okay? Well, that’s good then,” Hongbin said and Jaehwan pitched in that at least they didn’t have to return any of their awards to get Hakyeon back.

Wonshik looked unconvinced. “You woke up and what? Showered a couple of times, and then you’re back to your own bodies again?” he asked.

Sanghyuk coughed and mumbled something about shared showers, cough, and felt positively gleeful at Hakyeon glaring at him.

“Something like that,” Hakyeon said.

After a grueling couple of hours of dance practice Taekwoon caught up to both of them near the water cooler, offering his congratulations.

“For being back in our bodies?” Sanghyuk said, grinning.

“Yeah and for the other one.” Taekwoon made a complicated gesture with his paper cup that had Hakyeon’s face going up in flames and Sanghyuk would be laughing as well if he hadn’t felt like dying on the spot because. Because.

“Be safe you two,” Taekwoon nodded like it was the most sage of advice, squeezed Hakyeon's shoulder once, then walked off.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated holidays, faunalyn. I saw your prompt and just had to write the bodyswap. 
> 
> Title from Izumi Shikibu's untitled love poem (full line: "And this body, transformed by love.")

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [and this body, transformed (one more time mix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919783) by [renquise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise)




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